Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Remember the time when the TEPCO/government complex pretended that it would fill the Containment Vessels of Reactors 1, 2 and 3 with water to cool the Reactor Pressure Vessels inside? It was late April, TEPCO started to pour an enormous amount of water in the RPV of Reactor 1 to fill the Vessel (as the water would leak into the CV). The operation was dubbed "water entombment".

We know how it quickly ended. TEPCO finally managed to actually measure the water level inside the CV and RPV of Reactor 1, and found that there was hardly any water in either of them - i.e. both the CV and the RPV of Reactor 1 were broken, kaput. Of 10,000 tonnes of water that TEPCO poured into the CV of Reactor 1, 3,000 tonnes were discovered in the basement.

But now, the water entombment is back in discussion in conjunction with decommissioning the reactors at Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant, according to Mainichi Shinbun (8/31/2011).

According to Mainichi, the plan submitted by TEPCO to a special committee of the Nuclear Safety Commission calls for the following steps:

Clean up highly radioactive debris inside the reactor buildings;

Identify and repair the damage to the Containment Vessels and the reactor buildings;

Fill the Containment Vessels with water;

Open the top lid of the Reactor Pressure Vessels and remove the melted fuel.

The NSC committee will consider the plan, and the government will decide on the final plan by January 2012.

And no one knows, or rather, no one cares or wants to know, where exactly these melted blobs of fuel rods, control rods, instruments, metals, etc., are right now. TEPCO and the government will proceed as if they remain at the bottom of the Containment Vessel of each Reactor, if not still within the RPV.

Inside the reactor buildings there are at least several spots as identified by TEPCO where the radiation levels are measured in sieverts/hour. Who is going to do the cleanup work, not to mention repairing the CVs and the building (I suppose they are thinking about the concrete foundations)?

16
comments:

Anonymous
said...

It's not only Japanese governments that are idiots when it comes to radiation-Take a look at this article about the leading Republican presidential candidate in the U.S., Rick Perry. He issued permits for a major donor to build a nuclear waste facility directly above a Texas aquifer that provides drinking water to 1.9 million people in 5 states.http://www.truth-out.org/perry-hates-regulators-theyre-bad-his-business/1314798796

It seems that the plan ( http://www.aec.go.jp/jicst/NC/tyoki/sakutei/siryo/sochi2/siryo1.pdf) is simply a recognition that the site is just too dangerous to stabilize in place. The nuclear fuel/corium must be removed, else it continues to contaminate more of Japan.The engineering that is required for this will be enormously costly, both in money and in people's lives, yet completely unproductive. That reality may be starting to be acknowledged. It is part of the cost of nuclear power as currently implemented. One can only hope that politicians and business leaders will recognize that this is not sustainable. If nuclear is to be a viable option, it cannot have this kind of failure. Costs may double, or more, but that is still way less than the so called sustainables would cost.

4) In a fit of social retardation build nuclear reactors and bombs eventually fulfilling Armageddon.

No wonder we are so retarded all that inbreeding was sure to lead to nuclear disasters. I can't wait until every nation on Earth is using nuclear power and generating waste with the promise that future technology will eventually solve the waste problem. It has been over half a century and the promise of economical waste burning reactors is still a much touted pipe dream. China isn't leading the way with "new" MSR technology they are following the path of failure enjoyed by may past MSR/FBR based projects. India has been working to close the Thorium fuel cycle for decades with very little to show for it. There is no reason to believe China will surpass India anytime soon.

Thanks for the update Ultraman Tiga. Well, those are good questions you pose. They are going to Plan B, or is that D? And, no explanations, of course, given for changes or expectations or what is really going on. Does not sound good but who knows maybe they can pull off a small victory if this plan works (I am not that optimistic but maybe we need a bit of luck).

This is unrelated yet quite related in regards to the low quality of government we are all getting in the world these days. It is actually safer to be in Japan where you will get zapped with radiation than in America where you will get zapped by maniacal police;

America is Bonkershttp://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=26326

As I recall, the idea of filling the CV with water was initially rejected by TEPCO because of the additional weight of the water would impose on the structure. Well to remember these buildings have experienced:

About my coverage of Japan Earthquake of March 11

I am Japanese, and I not only read Japanese news sources for information on earthquake and the Fukushima Nuke Plant but also watch press conferences via the Internet when I can and summarize my findings, adding my observations.

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Well, this was, until March 11, 2011. Now it is taken over by the events in Japan, first earthquake and tsunami but quickly by the nuke reactor accident. It continues to be a one-person (me) blog, and I haven't even managed to update the sidebars after 5 months... Thanks for coming, spread the word.------------------This is an aggregator site of blogs coming out of SKF (double-short financials ETF) message board at Yahoo.

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